


Away

by Ladiladida



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Comfort, Embarassment, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Hidden Feelings, Pining, Pre Relationship, Sleep, how the hell had this happened, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 13:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17982260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiladida/pseuds/Ladiladida
Summary: A day begins in an unexpected way.





	Away

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for the lovely comments regarding Glinting Graces. I was very touched by all the lovely feedback. I just wrote this bit of fluff as it came to me. Pure daftness.

You know when you've found it,  
There's something I've learned  
'Cause you feel it when they take it away

Amie, Damien Rice

“I’ve not felt aching in my feet arches for a long time.” Robin remarked, slipping off the heel and discretely massaging the tender area of her foot, “it feels like when I first started wearing heels.”  
“They haven’t heard of smooth pavements much up here.” Cormoran replied, trying to appear as though his attention rested on everything about them, not just her. It was a cowardly attempt to appear casual that he found infuriating, but it was necessary.  
“Is your knee alright?”  
“Bloody useless as normal.”  
“Well let’s taxi it to this guy’s office then...”  
“Probably for the best.”  
Robin tucked back into her cup of coffee, taking several sips back to back. Though she didn’t look it, he could tell she was still tired. They both were. After two days near Hastings trying to find Ryan White, a PR Fixer who having first agreed to be interviewed at his second home, was now proving elusive. Yesterday had been spent following his most steady girlfriend in the hopes of coming across him. The cobble streets and waiting straight from two busy days in London and a drive down on minimal sleep had taken its toll. But in truth, Strike wasn’t feeling half as sleepy or achey as he was unsettled. 

In the privacy of one of their rooms at the b&b the previous night, they had tucked themselves away to go through things. It didn’t feel discrete enough downstairs in the small bar room. But with only one chair, and both aching, they had both sat on the bed with Robin’s laptop. 

When both became too tired to discuss matters, Robin had closed the lid and with no hint of self consciousness, she had reclined against the headboard and stretched out her legs. Legs which became very aware to Strike. With a good foot of space between them, Strike had been persuaded, eventually to do the same. The comfort and relief promised by doing so, tired as he was had won him over. 

In the next moment, Cormoran had woken to a dimly lit room, one thin stream of early day sunlight cutting through the room. It illuminated the bed from its small slither of the curtains. His first awareness was that, unlike normal, his prosthetic was still attached, second that he had slept like the dead on his back for the entire time. But the third and most prominent point of his radar was that Robin was now right next to him...

So close in fact that her sleeping face looked in his direction and the fingers of one hand rested loosely on his stomach. Sleeping on her side, the knee of the top leg rested just below his own. This wasn’t like waking up in a movie, Robin’s hair was tousled and she had faint dark smudges he knew to be called panda eyes from her day old mascara. The jeans she wore previously still tauntingly fit her perfectly crafted hips and thighs. Cormoran distracted himself wondering how she’d managed to sleep in the things, they were hardly comfortable. But then again, neither was a prosthetic leg.

How had she ended up so close to him though? His whirring, still tired mind concluded that neither were beneath the duvet having passed out from exhaustion. Therefore she must have felt the warmth from him and had unconsciously gathered herself to it. That was the only logical explanation. Unnerved and more at having woken up like this though he was, scared she might wake up any second, Cormoran felt reluctant to move.

Indeed, how in another world he would like to carefully remove the prosthetic, turn his body slightly more towards her and gather her warm body to his. That he imagined would be the perfect, though somewhat distracted way of returning to sleep. Despite their full dress, his urge to feel her soft, clothed body draped against his in such a natural way. All the other dreams he had regarding her still stood of course, but having her in his atmosphere generally brought him such peace in so many ways, albeit with a hint of unrest too. But laid now, looking so serene as she did, he wanted to lose himself in its slumber with only her.

“You alright?” Robin asked, jerking him back to reality as he stared from the small dining room window at the b&b.   
“Fine.” He lied. “You?”  
“I’m a bit embarrassed to be honest.”  
“Why?”  
His stomach flipped and danced, had she realised after all, had she just been pretending? After a pause she said.  
“Well I was just moaning about my feet wasn’t I...”  
Her eyes now flicked nervously to the window, it was unlike her to be honest and he was puzzled.  
“That all? Don’t worry about that...” he laughed, relieved. “Another coffee?”  
“Please.”

Cormoran rose and went to grab them a fresh beverage each from the immaculately left serving station. He acknowledged that he had certainly felt the loss of her when he had finally risen from the bed earlier. It had been so intimate, but such a minor thing. Yet it would give him some unrest for a good while in solitary moments he was sure. 

Robin sat looking down at her now empty plate, remembering with warm cheeks the true motive for edging up beside him the previous night. For she knew that Strike was so dead to the world last night, that no sneaking under the duvet would have woken him, nor had the room been that cold. But it was a secret and she wouldn’t even discuss it with herself. But though it was over, she would remember.


End file.
